Because the World is
by Silvey M
Summary: —To all of the HalfTouched.
1. A Soft Memory

Because the World is  
by Silver Meteor  
  
Disclaimer: Moulin Rouge belongs to someone generally more talented and rich than me. If I owned Moulin Rouge, then their would be a music number about possums and blue pumpkins. Maybe the Duke would sing it. Anyway.  
  
Maybe I have read too many fairy tales. Maybe no one will believe me.––Francesca Lia Block,   
  
**  
  
I.**  
  
I have a picture of my mother. She is wearing a  
pair of wings and I have a sharp silver sword and   
we are both wearing lace,   
and little golden crowns.   
  
I like photographs,   
a soft memory held captive by a pretty silver  
cage you can wear around your   
neck. Hellie'd sell it if she saw it,   
  
and then the soft memory would be swept away by the harsh cold winds that steal away the babes in the night.  
  
I only look at it at night.  
  
That's one thing about Hellie. She shouts and farts and cusses,   
at me a lot. She says _You little whoreling shaddap and pay some respect to your betters  
are you listening to me girl I'll whip you come here where is your wits, girl?_  
  
She'll get mad cause I don't remember things. Like Mr. Paycheck,  
who comes every week to give Hellie money an' then I'm   
s'posed to say Hellie is a good mom when she really   
could be better at it  
and wash my hair and say  
Yes sir No sir If you say so sir. He asks  
_Well, what did you learn in Church last Sunday_   
and I'll say I forgot to go  
cause Hellie had the Whip out and I was hiding and  
Hellie'll say _Hawh, isn't she a duckling?_   
and say  
later when he leaves  
_Come ere girl you wanna get whipped?_  
  
Or when she sends me to pick up her payment from  
Mr. Bread who makes her bread   
every week.  
On the way back I forget what I'm doing with it  
and eat half. Then I remember and  
leave the half-eaten bread crust on the door and   
hope  
she forgets or she won't care knowing that   
she will  
so I run like I won't ever stop and go  
  
look to steal her something pretty.  
  
Hellie likes things that are pretty, like  
broken glass and fake fur and pretty tin coins.  
  
I tell her they're jewels and fox   
and worth a whole lot.  
  
And she always says, _What the hell is this shit?_ and throws it in the   
garbage bin, but she always   
takes it out again when she thinks  
I'm not looking.  
  
The reason I don't bother to remember things like what Hellie tells me  
is cause I like remembering about my mom better.  
  
This is what I remember:  
  
A far-away kingdom, with two towers and a giant  
booming genie,  
a castle full of dancing princesses,   
strait out of a faerie tale.  
Every night there was a ball, and kings   
that were young  
and old as their tongues and older than their teeth,  
came and watched the night spin away into   
oblivion.  
  
Where every room was filled with beautiful things,  
each one dazzling and desirable, and   
each one and all  
of them  
worth less than anyone would ever think at first.  
  
And their were two Enchantresses:  
Both beautiful beyond any woman,   
any goddess,  
one dark midnight as the other was fiery dawn.  
One both young and old and jaded; the other just   
young and too naive to   
know she would be jaded   
one day.  
  
One of them was my mother, and I   
lived there with her and   
watched her cast a spell on the kings   
every night. 


	2. She Roared

**Because the World is  
**by Silver Meteor**  
  
  
  
**He said that black sheeps express everyone else's anger and pain. It's not that they have all the anger and pain—they're just the only ones who let it out.– Francesca Lia Block, _Witch Baby_**  
  
  
II.**  
  
I told Hellie about my memory once. I got  
as far as the two Enchantresses before  
she roared  
_You mean that filthy mother of yours   
you little maggot  
don't you know what yer saying?_ and she   
threw a broom at me.  
  
I spent the rest of the night in a tree,  
telling a twig why  
it was okay for Hellie to be mad cause  
It was my fault anyway.  
The twig didn't say anything, so I   
broke it in half and   
threw it a cat.  
  
  
  
  
  



	3. Something Sweet and Strange

Because the World is  
by Silver Meteor  
  
We are all in the gutter, but some  
of us are looking at the stars.  
  
––Oscar Wilde**  
  
III.**  
  
Today I beg.  
I walk down the street where  
everyone is busy and   
I look around to see what   
would Hellie like.  
  
A man near the corner, his face a-light  
with excitement and hope,  
selling the  
best grapes in all of France. Nay,  
the entire world, try one  
and see  
for yourself. He   
calls me over to him, and hands me one  
of the purple kind. I like the red ones  
best. _How does it taste?_ _Like a   
sunshining morning, full of  
the blue sky and sweet like  
the finest wine?_  
  
Oh yes, I tell him, and   
pocket a bunch of the red ones  
once he jovially   
reports to the crowd  
what I said.  
I am gone when he turns back, and   
so are three brushes of grapes.  
  
He will have learned that  
it is best to sell what   
you've got in silence, instead of  
so happy.   
It seems like anyone will take from a happy man.  
  
The green ones are sour, and   
I save those for Hellie. And I suck the skin off the red ones,   
while the fruit turns   
to jelly in my mouth,   
something sweet and strange. 


	4. Half Touched

Because the World is  
by Silver Meteor  
  
It was pretty dark so you could see the stars really big and bright, and I thought how cold the sky was and not welcoming or magical at all. It just made me feel really lonely. A bat flew past like a sharp shadow and I could hear owls and coyotes. The coyote howls were the sound I would have made if I could have. Deep and sad but scary enough that no one would mess with me, either.––Francesca Lia Block,   
  
IV.  
I shift aside the scratchy lace and chilly   
satin to find a broken angel,   
struggling to breathe, a bruise blossoming  
on her pale cheek, face dripping with salty sweat.   
  
She sees me, and though it   
causes her pain, she lifts up one  
thin,   
thin arm and strokes my face  
with soft, small fingers. She is bleeding in-between   
her legs.  
  
She gives me a smile, her eyes haze, and closes her eyes.  
  
She doesn't open them again.  
  
I curl up next to her, and lay my head  
across her chest. A flutter of a wounded  
bird, after a boy has thrown a stone at it.  
  
Silence.  
  
And I wake up. It is an all-at-once  
waking up, catapulting me into   
a dark world where little girls   
can have nightmares even though all the   
stars are out and the breeze is blowing.  
Hellie snorts and scratches her rear, and  
turns over, muttering about stolen pearls.  
  
_Honest'ly, sir, they were in my purse when I left. . ._  
  
I hug myself and wait for an explosion, something   
loud and big, just waiting. I hold my breath.  
I cross my toes.   
  
Nothing but the stars buzzing.  
  
Nothing but Hellie snoring.  
  
Nothing but the trees dancing in the wind.  
  
I get up and leave the cramped room, and climb to the roof.  
The moon hangs like a swollen  
silver crystal ball, the kind that the teller  
uses to form her pretty lies,   
full of borrowed light and  
false  
mist.  
  
The light changes the rooftop to a   
færie court, where shadows dance to  
a music that is not quite there.  
They say the wicked or the very mad can hear it  
all the time.   
  
I know it's true because the old woman across the lane  
fell out of her door one day, screaming  
for the music to stop. I was right there.  
  
She was wicked, and mad. I listened to her  
crazed mumbling, before the men came and  
held her down.  
She promised them her mirror in her hall. She  
promised them the bones of her dead son. She  
promised  
her iron teeth that she had made with the four  
horseshoes of the horse that carried her on the first day of her  
woman hood, the teeth she had to use when she  
traded her real teeth for power. If only the singing  
would stop, by the Dark One Himself, make it stop.  
  
I heard them laugh at her.   
  
_Come with us,_ they beckon me, now._ Come,  
we will never hurt you, for you will be   
our sparkling treasure, forever loved, and you will never be lonely.  
  
Our realm is the realm of tangible shadows, shifting twilight moon.  
The summer sky will be your stage, and bonny dragons will come   
at your beck and call. Come with us, precious child.  
We will never hurt you. Our treasure.  
  
Be ours.  
_  
The shadows invite me to dance,  
and I leap and tumble,  
and Robin Longfellow Himself   
plays a tune on   
his fiddle, alive like something wild and  
enough to drive a man crazy.  
They shriek and dance, I dance with them,   
but leap out again before  
they can close their færie ring.  
  
I am too smart for that.  
  
_One day,_ whispers Robin by my ear,_ you will come with us.  
You can't stay here, we have changed you. Our song  
makes men crazy. You're half-touched, Child.  
  
One day you will come with us._  
  
This makes me freeze on the inside,  
but I laugh and toss my head back like a horse.  
Robin Longfellow grins like a pumpkin a-light  
from   
within, maybe because he likes that I laughed  
or that he likes that he scared me.  
  
I think that even if I am a bit mad, I shall always keep my teeth.  
  
I run like I am running from forever, and   
swooping down the empty streets  
like I have wings.  
  
I run faster. 


	5. Sparrow

**Because the World is**  
by Silver Meteor  
  
In Mexico people wear hummingbird amulets around their necks to show they are searching for love. Here people pretend they aren't. Searching.––Francesca Lia Block, _Missing Angel Juan_  
  
**V.**  
  
The man is dark, like he belongs somewhere at night where  
the cactuses whisper secrets in the hot  
desert air, but   
got left out here in the sun by mistake,   
he has a mustache and a shiny top hat, that  
don't match his   
red red coat.  
  
She is wearing black, and her hair is dark and a   
little dirty, but it still  
shines in the sun like feathers from a raven.   
Her face is a little sour, but  
I know she is happy today, because her eyes which look like   
they used to be cats eyes are   
sparkling, and she is smirking.  
  
I bumped into them on my  
daily rounds at a  
local café, begging and filtching,  
Hey mister, ya got any spare change   
for a starving girl? Look at me,  
all skin and   
bones. Hey mister?  
Steal a wallet when they turn away.  
  
_Wotch where yer going_, she says. _Get out of my way, girlie.  
_I tilt my head up, put a hand on one hip   
and slouch, and tell her  
You're fat and ugly, lady, _YOU_ move.  
  
She looks surprised for a bit, but gets angry and   
she might grab me but  
the man she's with lets out a laugh like a dog and   
says _Ha, what a sweet little girl. She reminds me of you,  
_mi amour. _  
  
_But I stopped listening, because a brown bird just   
landed   
on the table next to me, and I'm watching it.  
It darts about the table, stealing  
the crumbs from the plate of the man who   
is eating there, while he  
reads the paper.  
  
The night-man leans over to me and   
holds out his hand,   
which are so big they  
hold both my hands in one. _What is your name,  
little girl?_ he asks.  
  
Sparrow, I say, with a sweet sweet smile,  
before reaching out and taking his billfold  
and running  
down  
the street. The man shoughts something  
in Spanish, a great roar of sounds like a   
great animal, and the sour cat-eyed woman is laughing,  
_Hawh hawh, reminds you of   
me, reminds you of me,  
What a sweeeet little girl!_


	6. A Knight and His Page

**Because the World is  
**by Silver Meteor**  
  
**  
This city is like an old forest or house that you think's just rotting away and then you see there's magic inside. I try to remember that about life and about my heart in me. I think by being by myself I am learning how to love you more and not be so afraid.––Francesca Lia Block, _Missing Angel Juan_**  
  
  
  
  
  
VI.**_  
  
Girl, you get yerself in here!_ says  
Hellie. I'd run, but I'm  
too far from the door. I hunch  
my shoulders, and scrunch   
my mouth.   
  
I find Hellie behind a mound  
of dirty paper tissue, her eyes   
swollen red and   
nose running.  
Her voice is cracked like  
an eggshell.  
  
_You know what you done?_ she says.  
I don't know what I done. Sometimes  
Hellie will hit me for things she  
imagines I do.   
  
It's a game.  
  
_You whoreling. You're just like er.   
Wench!_  
Hellie hits like a bull, if a bull  
were smart enough to hit  
when the man with the swords wasn't   
expecting it.   
  
Smack, on my cheek, and  
I'm on the floor. I claw at her ankles, bite, kick,  
scream, but she picks me up and tosses me out the  
door. In the dirt, I bang my mouth and  
feel something bleed.  
  
_You're just like her, the bitch, _you little   
piece of filth.  
  
She grabs me, out in the open, in   
the middle of the street, where anyone can see.  
She wants them to see.  
  
I scream. I scream like a   
wild cat, a vixen driven mad and  
fighting for her life. She has my arm,   
and I try to get away,   
but   
she   
roars,   
like a train, like a nightmare,   
loud and more angry than  
the   
Devil. And she pounds, pounds,   
pounds on me so I don't have   
air to turn into a scream and   
it can only get worse  
and worse  
and  
worse. . ._  
  
Stop. You there, woman, let that girl go.  
  
_Hellie stops roaring at once, and smoothes her  
hair with her free hand. I don't stop struggling.  
  
_She's really a orrible little spiteful thing,_ says Hellie, in her  
most sweetest voice that   
makes my toes curl. _I'm just   
teaching er a lesson, sir, it's fer  
er own good. If I had more money,  
she might have a good learning, sir.  
Alas, alas. . ._  
  
Hellie's used this before, and sometimes it  
works. When it doesn't, I have to run away.  
  
_How much do you need?_  
  
I watch the bright colored bills like  
wilting flower petals fall the ground, and I look  
up at the man who's saving me right now  
to see:  
  
A Knight. The sun smiling on his   
silver armor, youthful face, honor,  
too bright to look at—  
  
and the image fades only to become  
a hazy reflection on the back of   
my eyes.   
  
_Half-Touched, Half-Touched,_  
a voice in my ear sings.  
  
The man really just looks like  
everyone else here: young, but   
older than they were before they came   
and tired but not  
deep enough down to  
give up.  
_  
_Hellie looks down at the pretty  
pieces of paper with hunger.  
Her grip on my arm tightens,   
like she is afraid it is a trick. Then she   
scoops up the papers and darts  
into the house that was partly  
mine and shuts the   
rusty door with a slam.  
  
I hear her lock the bolt. She never locks the bolt.  
  
I know what this means, and even though part of me is like a raging dragon that wants to burn  
and burn   
and burn  
the rest of me is all one lost girl huddling in the dirt with no where to sleep anymore._  
  
_He's still standing there. I almost  
forgot that I'm his now.  
He bought me.  
  
I am worth a handful of paper.  
  
I feel him looking at me, but then  
he just turns around  
and he walks away. I get up, and follow.  
  
A Knight and his page.  
  
We continue walking in silence, down the dirty  
streets that look somewhat beautiful because  
it's so bright in the sky today. _  
This city is like a good whore,_ I heard an old man say  
to his friend, who was dead and buried underground.  
_Tempting, addicting, fraught with sin and more beautiful on the strangest  
days._   
The cold stone angel looked almost thoughtful.  
  
I'm dreaming,  
I'm dreaming that I'll go out into the world  
like all of the dirty, ragged children who are   
really princes and princesses who  
have to walk on daggers  
and cry every night so the can fill  
up an ogre's well, and help a   
beggar woman who is actually a færie wish-maker,  
and I will wish for anything  
just   
anything   
that might   
bring my mother back.  
  
The Knight walks on. I follow.  
  



	7. Two Endings

**Because the World is**  
by Silver Meteor  
  
There are people who take the heart   
out of you, and there are people who  
put it back.  
––Elizabeth David  
  
VII.  
  
The so sweet sticky bun dances  
on my tongue, becoming almost nothing  
when I bite it, melting like a  
snowfllake of sugar.  
  
The Knight bought it for me, and one  
for him, but he didn't eat it.  
  
Right now we are sitting at the river, which  
is something I have never done before.  
Under the surface of that silver  
face, it's moving away from you,  
further and further  
and it's gone and  
you can't even tell.  
  
The tower is black, metal,  
and so big that when  
the sky falls it will tear   
a bit of it off, so  
I will climb to the top and use  
the tattered bit of sky caught  
on the top to make the most  
wonderful kite.  
  
I eat his sticky bun.  
  
_Can you tell me why people die?_  
  
I look at him. His eyes look  
desperate but almost relieved,  
as if he has been waiting to ask that question  
for forever but was too  
scared  
or ashamed  
or both  
to ask it.  
  
_Not just any people. The people you love. Why? What's the   
point of it?  
  
_I think hard and take another bite,  
but he goes on before  
I can think of the answer.  
  
_Just when everything's going to be wonderful again,_  
the Knight says, but his voice goes rigid,  
so it won't give away  
how said it is. _They're taken away  
Is it some kind of  
joke?  
  
_I ask him if it's funny when people die,  
because if it wasn't  
then it wouldn't be a joke.  
He closes up on the inside and   
I know that what  
I said was not what he  
wanted me to say.  
  
The Knight mumbles an apology,  
why he was so stupid enough to talk like that,  
especially to a little girl,   
he must be going mad.  
_It's just that it's so hard._  
  
He cups his head in his hands,  
like it's too heavy to hold up by  
itself. He doesn't speak for a while.  
  
The sun starts to fall, and  
the last specks of cloud colored from the light  
drift and fade and shimmer  
just like birds who swoop   
down but avoid the ground at the last  
moment.  
  
My mum died, I say.  
It wasn't funny.  
He looks at me like he  
just noticed I'm still here.  
_I'm sorry,_ he says,   
and it's like he means it.  
_I. . . I'd just thought that. . .   
That woman was your mother._  
  
Oh no, I say,  
When I lived at the castle,   
that's when she died.  
My mum lived there. And she would  
sing, and she would dance,  
and everyone loved her.  
  
He looks at me, and his eyes look a   
little odd. Sort of. . . lighter.  
I decide he wants to hear more.  
My fingers twitch, words and   
pictures float out of the   
muddle to my eyes  
and everything  
just  
_shifts_,  
and I tell a story.  
  
She was an Enchantress, see,  
and when she lived there  
all the lords and kings and princes  
in their robes and crowns came to see   
her dance for them, and would come  
back and stay there forever.  
She was called The Lady  
Morgana,  
and she had dark hair like  
the sky inbetween all the stars  
and she sang with   
a girl they called Diamond,   
(but her real name was something like  
Satin. Sometimes Satin would play   
with me.)  
who she taught how to  
do magic.  
And they came to see them every night.  
And she would dress me up  
in gowns and lace, with jewels  
in my hair and wings, and kiss   
my nose.  
  
But she died, so I went to live with Hellie.  
  
_Did you say ?_ he asks.   
He looks like a starving child looks  
when you hold out the last  
piece of bread out in front of him.  
_And her real name was ?  
  
_He grabs my shoulder very hard,  
and in an instant I twist away,  
impossible for him to hold.  
  
_Wait!_ he calls. _Please,  
please you have to tell me.  
Was her name ?  
Please,_  
  
and he sounds so desperate,  
just like a starving child I have  
to stop. I   
turn and look at him, and this is  
what I see:  
  
A woman, behind him. She isn't  
standing, she's an image:  
Red, like a tropical flower, a  
sunset,  
a ruby. Her hair's twisting about,  
flowing with the wind, and she's   
got wings.   
Only these wings aren't the special  
pigeon ones I once danced with  
at midnight,  
they are real.  
She has the kindest ocean eyes, and   
she is smiling  
at   
me.  
  
_I just can't go on anymore,_ the Knight cries,  
falling to his knees, even though  
the streets are caked  
with the filth and   
slime of this old city.  
_She was there, alive, so alive, singing,  
and then she was gone, ripped away,  
and it's so cold. . .  
She told me to write our story, but it  
only tortures me. I can't. . . .  
I want to die.  
  
_I look at the Angel, and I realize  
what she wants me to say._  
_  
So I say it.  
You have to go on, I say.  
_  
_Because this world is about living and dying and wanting for  
yesterday.  
This world is about spring and winter and summer and autumn,  
the cool breeze in the flowers that no one finds the time to look at.  
  
Because this world is huge and small at the same time, where  
everyone looks for a home in other's hearts.  
This world is about magic in the secret places that no one looks for magic in,  
and the gift of a late night story about the stars.  
  
Because this world is about pain and peace and   
waking up one sunny morning and realizing that it doesn't hurt so much.  
This world is about dreaming and wishing and remembering and  
waking up one day and realizing you've missed so much.  
  
Because this world is about winning and losing and then  
realizing that those two things are least important things in the entire  
crazy world.  
This world is about loving and tears and dark, helpless thoughts  
that tear and tear and tear at your heart until it breaks in two.  
  
Because this world is about breaking hearts and waiting for someone to come  
and put the pieces back together again.  
Because this world is about never understanding it, only guessing it,   
and wondering about what comes next.  
  
Because this world is about an adventure, and every life is worth a story  
and at least a little love, too.  
Because this world is about holding on and letting go, and   
whatever you are is entirely up to you.  
  
Because this is your world, and you were meant to live in it, no matter how much it hurts.  
  
And even though I know it's the truth,  
the one truth that always changes  
yet remains the same,  
the one truth worth more than diamonds, it feels  
like those words have waited centuries to  
be spoken, and they chose me  
to say them.   
And it scares me.  
But only a little.  
  
I run to the edge of the river, the   
great tower rising like a   
birdcage above the city that  
sings like a cadged   
bird.  
I watch that silver face, and I   
wonder where it will end up,  
and if it will remember the face of   
the little girl   
when it gets there.  
I look back.  
  
And he is sitting there, hat   
in his hand, watching me.  
  
He doesn't know it, but I can   
see a beautiful Enchantress Angel behind him,  
a Guienivere to his Lance'lot,   
red and firery as the   
setting sun and purer  
than any diamond.   
  
And I'm not scared anymore,  
I am free,  
and I smile, because:  
I know there are two endings to this story.  
  
I will turn and disappear into the being  
of the city, peel away  
and fly to  
somewhere where they need a little girl like  
me, with her antique dirty lace under  
her rags so they stay   
hidden  
and a wool cap,   
spinning silver yearn from spider  
web and   
where you can have your very own  
set of wings. And the Knight will never  
see me again, no one will know   
where I went.  
It won't hurt anymore.  
My story will be one of Danger  
and Adventure and Magic, Beauty  
and Whispers.   
My story will be the most wonderful, because   
if I go with the People  
it would have happened.  
  
But I know no one would ever hear it.  
  
Or :  
  
He is going to take my hand.  
He is going to bring me home.  
And I will tell a story. 


	8. In Dedication To

  
  
I say to you,  
the one who has listened to me  
while I wove my tale  
of life,  
hold these moments   
close to your heart.  
  
Because—  
  
—you _can_ hold a sunny day inside   
yourself forever,  
while the taste of something sweet  
and strange  
melts on your soul.  
  
—you _will_ one day  
have your moment of clarity—  
This is life. This is the way life is, even if it is only for a moment.  
  
—every heart _does_ hold love,  
even the ones that   
are so bruised   
they can feel the pain well up   
inside themselves  
until everything is dark.  
  
—the ugly sister who spits wasps  
_does_ love  
the beautiful sister who   
sings diamonds,  
even if she never  
got the chance to say so.  
  
Because it _is_ possible to remember something that   
you were too young to  
remember,  
like the way her wings   
protected   
me when I   
dreamt  
of  
flying.  
  
Because the World is for—  
  
—The dreamers,   
the lovers, the wishers,   
the believers,   
  
the artists,   
the inventors,   
the story weavers, the tapestry makers,   
  
the hopers, the seekers,   
the explorers,   
the riddlers, the princesses and princes,   
  
the flower growers, the stepsisters,   
the wizards,  
the star seers,   
the writers, the composers,   
  
the dancers,   
the snake charmers,   
the givers, the light-bringers,   
the moon kissers,   
  
the jokers, the harpers,   
the music players, the glass-blowers,   
the fire-breathers, the care-takers,   
the godmothers, the wing makers—  
  
—To all of the Half-Touched. 


End file.
